Bought a Whynter Sno icecream maker recently, and have been really enjoying its products, especially in the 100 degree-plus NYC summer swelter we've been having!

So far, we've made a (custard-based) Madagascar vanilla and a dark (88%) chocolate, plus an Italian 'Pan Forte' recipe with homemade candied orange peel and roasted almonds. Also a 'Vietnamese Coffee' espresso and condensed milk (no egg) version. All from the 'Perfect Scoop' book. I tell ya, I like the eggy versions much better, but I am a custard fan from way back.

So, of course, thoughts of hobby overlap ensued immediately, including the raw milk question. I also had a fabulous mascarpone gelato recently and see goat cheese and cajeta-based ice cream recipes - whoo, the possiblities "make-a de ganglia twitch!"

I do, but my daughter is very squeamish about the very idea of raw milk. When they're coming I do French vanilla since the custard is cooked. It's not the same as pasteurization, but she's fine with the idea that it's been cooked at least.

I'm interested in this. I like to make icecream periodically, and am always adusting my technique. I've always used pastureized milk/cream, and cook them in the process of making the custard. How are people doing this w/ raw milk? and are you getting a good texture? or is it icey/grainy?

Mix 1 cup chilled whole milk with 2 cups chilled cream, 2tsp vanilla extract and 3/4c sugar. I simply place them in a plastic pop bottle and shake gently til the sugar dissolves. Then place in freezer for 1/2hr.

For chocolate ice-cream I couldnt be bothered to make a custard beforehand, so - BEFORE mixing sugar with milk/cream: increase the sugar to 1c and add cocoa (approx 2.5 heaping soup spoons), mix well. Proceed with regular recipe.

All of my ice cream recipes involve bringing the milk to a boil. whether its custurd based or not.I suspect this step got into many recipes not because it improves the ice cream but as a food safty measure but no one mentions it as such.

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Amatuar winemaker,baker, cook and musician not in any particular order.

Looking to feature the milk as much as possible, we made two batches of Madagascar vanilla, Philadelphia-style (no eggs), and dialed back the cream component so it was about 75% milk / 25% cream. One batch was sweetened with regular white sugar and the other with raw Indian Jaggery/Gur brown cane sugar.

The result was pleasant, but I would fine-tune it in the future. The white sugar batch tasted a little bit too sugary sweet somehow. The jaggery batch was a whole different animal, with a beige color and an intriguing subtle fruitiness from the unrefined sugar (one person even guessed "olives?"). I thought of these more as experiments to evaluate the taste and impact of the raw milk in any event.

The texture of both seemed a little bit icier than our other batches, I wonder if the reduction in cream content might have contributed to that. All-milk recipes such as for gelato often have a texturing agent such as corn starch in them, maybe to counteract that?

As to the impact of using raw milk . . . .sounds funny to say, but I guess the ice cream was "milkier" or had a more prominent milk taste. It was not radically different from our other efforts, but the subtle nuances of milky sweetness and other dairy qualities seemed more in the foreground. I would definitely do it again.

Although this milk was unpasteurized, it had been homogenized. I would be interested to try making ice cream with unhomogenized milk also. And finding good quality cream that is not ultra-pasteurized!